Sunday, February 16, 2014

world as will and ambulation

***1/ 24 /14

Schopenhauer has his "Will to Life"-- live, don't die, spawn and don't kid yourself, unless yourself is himself, you couldn't not live, not not die, or not spawn even if you had mind to.

Nietzsche has his "Will to Power"-- be bendy or get bowled over and don't kid yourself, unless yourself is better than yourself or, at the very least, Schopenhauer's, at the end of the day however so unwillingly, you're gonna get bent.

The Black Eyed Peas have their "will.I.am"--with a little hustle and a little muscle you can stay on that other level and, like Zarathustra, even take it higher and higher and don't kid yourself you're gonna wanna to stay and buy attire.

Jonathan has his "Will through Gristle"-- come what dysphasia or cartilage may, what correlative TMJ or embedded blockade of hyper-tensile pig-flesh might, I will finish this pork chop if it takes the rest of my life, the whole of my power, and/ or the last sputter of my hustle. And don't kid yourself, I'm going to gnaw-clean what my son leaves on his t-bone.

I forgot to mention at the top: File under "Culinary Triumphs".

*** 1/ 26/ 14

The throng crowds the gate. They push in until many are mooshed against the great iron bars, arms snake through reaching for magnificence personified. Beyond are the impossible doors to the undreamable factory. Willie Wonka has set the hour and this is precisely it.

And this is a tick past it. And this a tock. And this an entire lifetime. The patience of the throng dissipates, the anticipatory thrill gutters. Hundreds of foreheads scowl, eyelids cinch then open wide. Brows and lips contort, report "WelI, I have never!" Sponge-up and distill every ounce of incredulity. Set aside.

Few by few, the disheartened throng relaxes back into streets. Back to knife peddling and char-wallowing. But the nearest ones, the ticketed ones and their lieutenants, and those whose unobstructed view of the still somewhat promising proceedings and proximity to the global celebrities have stuck to the rails, still form a mini-throng; they watch the impossible doors. Now possibly ajar? Scoop the extruding, pent-up giddiness. Set aside.

Wonka steps out. What gasp a mini-throng can gather gathers and a now regathering throng gasps. Wonka limps toward them, wobbling despite the aid of a cane. Grandpa Joe commiserates. The ticketed ones palm their gold, smooth crinkles in the foil. Wonka stops. He falls. Extract the consternation. Set aside.

Now, naturally, to Walt Disney's World--the Magic Kingdom, if we will. While Sam Walton's would suffice for my illustration, as it does when I make my irregular treks there, it would not serve as a particular boon to my anecdote. For this, I take you to an Orlando of Christmas not-long past along with my wife, her family, my son, and gifts. At the time (as now), I was obliged to do my walking by riding and my riding mostly by the might of the others. I was not new to this sort of humble reliance. Occasionally, I suffered these random bouts of neuro-motor giddy-up hitches; and a couple came with precision timing, bummer-wise: once in the Paradise of the Pacific, once in the Most Magical Place on Earth. Alas.

As we travel to Disney, we'll concoct a concentrated amalgam of our Wonka ingredients. We'll draw the result into a syringe, stopper, store, and keep out reach of children. For now.

Now hie us concession-ward for we are famished and parched and made of money. Park me at at the first crumby gummy table you see and I'll save our treasured island until you return from the trough for we are prodigal and magically metabolized for this kingdom's fare. "Satisfied," "nourished," and "adequately fueled " for the day's interminable remainder, let's find some exultant children to shoot-up in the cheeks, chins, lips, eyebrows, foreheads as with so much baby-Botox from our vial of filched facial expressions. For nothing is so delightfully adept at countenance-morphing as a double-taking two year old in a stroller when she discovers a daddy-sized man wheeling alongside her at eye level.

She'll treat us to the whole cartoon gamut from preoccupied Disney exultancy to the blank face of a tot taken aback to incredulity to the sparkling eyes of consternation to a crumbling flake of disdain and at last to the slow dawn of Charlie's smile.

An anecdote I believe was why I stepped away from present time and locale. And reports of this one can scarcely be exaggerated. So hie us to Mark Twain's Riverboat for a go around Tom Sawyer's Island. While pushing me up the ramp onto deck, if you need to use the cup holder on the back of my chair to stow your unwieldy souvenir soda, behoove yourself. Just park me beside the family.

They have situated themselves on a bench to starboard in front of the deck rails for advantageous viewing of the various robotic life forms -- mechanical gators and animatronic employees and the like; I am situated poorly but for a view of my family--a superfluous sight on any vacation, in- or out- law. I decide to take off my brakes and maneuver myself closer to primer riverboat real estate, that is, towards the bow ahead of my family, next to the family up front with the secondary aim of waving surreptitiously at their awestruck toddler.

The deck is not as level as I thought it to be, my initial heave to my wheels not as propulsive as I had envisioned. My pitiful half of a foot forward goes unnoticed, so I decide to stop before things get lamer. I start to ease back to my original station. The boat lurches. As do I. The boat settles back. I, unbraked, proceed astern. I, a quick-thinker, apply the emergency brakes with my delicate poet hands, and instantly pop a textbook backward wheelie which has been prerecorded somehow and played somehow in present-time slow-motion; given my delicate poet infirmity the situation is dire. My wife sees and rises from the bench into a freeze frame of horror, arms outstretched. The visual effect, in slo-mo, is not that she is grabbing to halt me rather pushing to hie me. This illusion is comical so I can't help my slowly developing grin. My brother-in-law reaches me first; not as we all later agree, to salvage the ten dollar contents of his souvenir cup stowed in my seat back. First intent notwithstanding, he is there to keep my chair from going fully obtuse and my father-in law arrives just in time to assist in laying me at a ludicrous but sound ninety degrees. Time relapses to time proper and I giggle as I watch my wife regain animation through the half-shocked tremble of my skyward knees.

The figurehead family gawks from the privilege of their prow: teens pent-up, adults with disdain, the stroller-bound baby smiling as wide as the ersatz river.

Captain's proverb log~the opposite of guilt is not innocence; the opposite of guilt is beingushered deferentially to the fronty front of the 8 mile queue to the "It's a Small World" ride alongside your family and whoever else has the gumption to get in tow posing as ever-distanter, never resembling cousins.